Seduced by the Storm (42 page)

He
pushed aside the pain and panic he felt upon seeing all the white coats
surrounding him, tried to shove down all those horrible days and months and
years when he was helpless and scared—and shit, he had to get out and find the
motherboard, had to complete the mission.

He
worked the telekinesis as hard as possible, threw whatever wasn’t nailed down
around so he could try to make his escape, but he felt hands on him and he
began to struggle.

People
flew off him like objects. Fuck, something was going on.

"Don’t
hurt him."

Faith’s
voice broke through his consciousness and it took everything he had left inside
of him to calm his shit down completely before she got hurt.

But
the silences, the unending vortex filled every crevice of his being and his
eyes focused on her.

She
wore leather, like she had that very first night he’d helped her. The first
night she’d lied to him.

Not
that he’d been completely honest with her himself, but still, he hadn’t
betrayed her…had gone out of his way not to. That wouldn’t happen again.

He
bared his teeth. "I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from
you."

"I
have something for you," she said quietly, the familiar accent he’d grown
to crave over the past days soothing his fucked-up nerves.

"Yeah,
I’ll just bet you’ve got something for me, Faith."

He
stood, flexing his fists by his sides, waiting for her next move. It came, but
it didn’t involve her powers.

"I’m
checking Wyatt out of here," she told the crowd of doctors and security
guards that now surrounded them in the mess of the hallway. "He doesn’t
belong here. He’s never belonged here."

He
nearly spat
Fuck you, love
to her, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t share that
private pain with a roomful of strangers the way she just had.

He’d
already revealed far too much here with his display of rage.

Instead,
he brushed past her, grabbed his clothes from the nurse who held them out to
him nervously. He stripped out of the purple scrubs they’d dressed him in,
re-dressed in the dead silence all around him. When he was finished, he stalked
past Faith and toward the nearest exit.

She
was holding the bag they’d brought the motherboard off the platform in.

He
felt her follow him the entire way out.

She
wanted chicken—she’d get the game. She’d get more than she’d ever bargained
for.

THEY
STOPPED on the far edge of the wooded facility grounds. Birds chirped in the
brisk autumn air and rabbits romped in the field and all of it felt so damned
cheery that Faith wanted to scream. Instead, she reached into the satchel. Her
fingers found the motherboard, and for just a moment she let herself touch it,
to imagine once again how it could help save lives. But at what cost?

Slowly,
she withdrew the piece of equipment. Wyatt tensed, the movement so subtle she
might not have noticed had she not gotten to know him so well. She looked up at
him, at the utterly expressionless look on his face, and a chill shimmered up
her spine. She could deal with him being angry, but this lack of emotion left
her on shaky ground.

"I’m
a little late keeping this promise," she said, "but here it is."

He
took the motherboard, and if she’d expected to see a softening in his
expression, she’d been very wrong.

"Wyatt…"
She took a deep, bracing breath. "I know there’s nothing I can say to make
up for what I did to you. I don’t think I can even explain why, except that I
honestly thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted to save lives."

He
made a sound of disgust. "You wanted to play God."

"Yes,"
she whispered. "You were right all along. This machine brings with it too
much temptation. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. And…I love you."

Nothing.
There was nothing in his eyes but flat darkness and pure loathing.

She
staggered backward in the face of his hatred, stung by the force of it. Her
throat swelled shut, so much that she barely squeaked out a weak "Take
care of yourself. Please." She spun around and fled through a break in the
hedges.

The
sound of the motherboard crunching beneath his boot rattled through her, the
sound of her heart breaking.

Then,
suddenly, Wyatt tackled her, took her to the ground in a tumble of limbs. He
lay on top of her as she sprawled on her back. "I don’t think so," he
growled. "You aren’t getting off that easy."

Tears
burned her eyes. "Easy? You think this is easy? I became what I feared
most. I betrayed the man I love. I’m in hell, Wyatt!"

He
laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. "Hell? Baby, you have no idea what hell
is. Hell is when someone you trusted takes your worst fears and makes them come
true. Hell is being stuck inside your own head because no one cares enough to
help you get out. Hell," he rasped next to her ear, "is being dead
inside a body that still works."

He
ground his hips against her, and she shivered, because yes, his body did work.
His erection prodded her pelvis, an insistent, brutal presence. He wanted her.
God, he still wanted her. Maybe they had a chance. And if not…she’d take what
she could get for now.

"Wyatt,"
she moaned, arching up so she could feel more of his hard body. His hand
slipped between her legs, beneath her skirt. The sound of fabric tearing as he
ripped off her panties was heaven to her ears.

And
then he was inside her. She came on the first thrust. He worked her through it,
knowing exactly how her body responded to him, and when she came down, he drove
harder. Powerful, driving strokes that set her on fire, burned her from the
inside out.

His
words about hell and being dead rang through her, but the physical connection
they shared was far more powerful. This would work between them. This would
heal them, or at least start the healing process.

Oh,
she loved this man.

Sensation
rippled through her, and the explosion took her hard, igniting every nerve
ending. A scream tore from her mouth before Wyatt covered it with his lips as
he pounded into her.

When
it was over, he immediately withdrew. She groped for him, wanting more—not more
sex, but simply to hold him. He shrugged off her touch. Confused, she reached
for him again, but drew back with a gasp when he glared at her. His eyes were
still cold, his breathing slow and shallow, as though he’d been doing nothing
more strenuous than reading a book.

And
he was still hard.

She
blinked, fuzzy-headed from orgasm. "You didn’t finish."

"Oh,
I’m finished." He buttoned up and stood. "How’s it feel, Faith?
Getting fucked by someone who should care…but doesn’t?"

Humiliation
and hurt crawled over her skin. The way he was looking at her, like she was
nothing, like any second he should be tossing a wad of cash at her, was a blow
that couldn’t be more painful if it were physical. "Wyatt, please. You
don’t mean that."

"I
don’t? Just watch how much I mean it." He pivoted on his heel and strode
away.

"Wyatt,
wait!" Without thinking, she reached out with her mind, speared straight
through the bare spots in his aura, unsure what she was going to do to stop him
or what she would say when she did. But God, his aura was barely there, thinner
than it had been before. If she could just repair it…

He
halted, went completely still. She’d forgotten that he’d learned to feel her
gift. "Even after everything," he said in a low, gravelly voice,
"you would still try to manipulate me?"

"I
just want to heal you," she whispered.

He
didn’t look at her. "Heal? You mean resuscitate. And it’s way too late for
that. DOA, Faith."

And
then he was gone. Agony overwhelmed her so that all she could do was sit in the
woods and sob, until she felt as dead inside as Wyatt claimed to be.

The
grief was so fresh, it threatened to break Devlin nearly every moment of every
day, but he wouldn’t let that happen. Oz would’ve hated him if he’d let it
happen, and in deference to the man’s memory, Dev held it together when he was
at ACRO.

But
when he was home, that was a different story. Last night, Marlena’d had to
collect him from the shower floor, where he’d been curled up under a flood of
freezing cold water, since that was the only place he could scream and scream
and not be heard.

The
loneliest part was that Dev didn’t feel Oz around him at all—Oz was in that
special place. Crossed over. Happy.

"Devlin,
there’s a call for you."

He
looked up to the beautiful, dark-haired woman who’d been his personal assistant
for the past eight years. "Thanks, Marlena. You can put it through."

"You
got it. I also ordered lunch for you—I’ll bring it in when it arrives."
She shut the door before he could tell her not to bother, and he shook his
head. She was probably one of the few people here at ACRO he’d allow to baby
him.

He
pressed the blinking button on his phone. "Devlin here."

"Hey—it’s
Wyatt."

"Wyatt,
thank God." Dev rubbed his eyes and tried to pick up on his operative’s
whereabouts.

"Mission
complete," Wyatt said in a thready voice that told Dev something was not
right with him.

Although
Dev dealt with some of the strongest men and women in the world, they were also
some of the most vulnerable. "Talk to me. What do you need?"

"Just
a ride home."

Dev
opened his eyes. "You need more than that."

There
was a long pause. "I need to come home. And you’re going to need to send
Annika to collect Faith Black."

"Wyatt,
listen carefully—Creed and Annika are already in Ireland. It shouldn’t take
them long to get to you."

"Tell
them to hurry," Wyatt said, and clicked the phone off…as Dev got a strange
sense of foreboding. He closed his eyes before dialing Creed, tried to CRV Ryan
one final time and again got nothing on the only ACRO agent who’d successfully
infiltrated Itor.

One
problem at a time. At least the hurricane disaster had been avoided. It was a
huge relief, but his hand still shook as he dialed Creed’s phone.

RYAN
MALMSTROM had a migraine from hell. His head hadn’t hurt this bad since the
time he’d been knocked over the head with a whiskey bottle back…when? He
couldn’t remember.

He
also couldn’t see.

What.
The. Fuck.

Blackness
surrounded him, or at least, that was how it seemed. His eyes were closed,
wouldn’t open. Taped shut, maybe?

The
sound of beeping—hospital equipment, he thought—penetrated his pain. Had he
been in an accident?

He
lifted his arm—or tried to. Something was holding it down. His other arm and
both legs as well. Straps.

Again,
what the fuck?

A
hand squeezed his left biceps. "Ryan?"

Ryan?
He opened his mouth to answer the speaker, but his throat was dry. He
swallowed. "Is…Ryan my name?" he croaked.

"Yes.
Yes, good. Ryan, do you remember anything? Anything
at all
?"

He
wracked his aching brain, but the only thing that came to mind was the whiskey
bottle in the bar. "I remember a bar. I got hit in the head with a whiskey
bottle. Is that why I’m here?"

There
was a pause. "What else?"

"That’s
all. Everything else is blank." And he was scared shitless.

"You’re
sure?"

"Of
course I’m fucking sure! I think I’d know if there was anything else in this
black hole inside my fucking skull!"

The
hand released him, and two hushed voices joined the first.

"Hey."
Ryan clenched his hands into fists, the only action he could take. "What’s
going on?"

The
men, presumably doctors, ignored him.

"Dammit!
Tell me what the fuck is wrong with me!" He struggled against his bonds, his
breath coming in furious pushes of air that made his chest cut into the straps
holding him down.

He
had a history of about five minutes of being strapped down to some sort of hard
table, but he was pretty damned sure he’d never been this helpless or pissed.
Then again, there was Coco.

Coco?

Who
the hell was Coco?

"Ryan,
you need to calm down." The owner of the original voice drifted to him,
followed by a prick in the arm. Instantly, his muscles seemed to melt.
"Now, I’m going to ask one more time: Do you remember anything more than
what you’ve told me?"

"No,"
he lied, because something told him to keep the Coco thing to himself.

"We
still need to do one more scrub of his memory," a second voice, deeper
than the first, said.

Panic
strangled Ryan so he couldn’t speak. Scrub. Holy shit.